New York is the epicenter of the current mixology craze. "I'm looking at them as being the main competition," Michaels said. Bartender Johnny Michaels has been leading the charge at La Belle Vie, but even he said the heavy-hitters whom Graves brought in from New York have given him pause. The Twin Cities bar scene is no stranger to mixology - where cocktails are crafted with the care of a gourmet meal - but it's still a niche calling. The hotel's 34-year-old president, the jet-setting Ben Graves, has reimagined the space as a restaurant with a giant focus on the latest in big-city nightlife trends: mixology. The bar takes the place of Infinity, the hotel nightclub that closed last year inside the swanky Graves 601. With serious money and talent behind it, Bradstreet brings a connoisseur's cocktail lounge to the heart of downtown Minneapolis. "I feel like I'm back in college," bartender Nikki Ockenden said later. "Shake it like you mean it!" he ordered, as three bartenders mixed a drink involving rum, lemon and an egg yolk. They took copious notes as a master bartender from New York lectured. On their laps were heavy binders stuffed with pages of drink recipes. Although some of them had worked top-tier bars in the Twin Cities, none had been through anything quite like this before.
It was their last day of intensive training at this new cocktail lounge. On a Friday afternoon in early January, a dozen bartenders and servers were lined up at the bar inside the Bradstreet Craftshouse Restaurant.
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